Cashew Cream

This contemporary recipe is a great substitute for dairy or soy based sour cream. And is it easy, or what? Use it for topping soups or as a simple sauce for vegetables or grains. It’s also a great garnish for Southwestern-style tortilla specialties, as on the Black Bean Tostadas shown above. Photo by Hannah Kaminsky.

Makes about 1 cup

1 cup raw cashews

2 tablespoons plain rice milk or other unsweetened nondairy milk

1 tablespoon lemon juice, or to taste

1/2 teaspoon salt

Place the cashews in a small, heatproof bowl and cover them with boiling water. Let stand for at least 30 minutes, or up to an hour.

Drain and transfer to a food processor with the rice milk, lemon juice, and salt. Process until smoothly pureed, stopping to scrape the sides down as needed. Add a little more rice milk if you need to thin the consistency a bit.

Transfer to a small serving bowl. Cover and refrigerate any unused portion. This will last for several days, refrigerated.

Jeff Rinehart

September 18, 2014 at 4:43 pm

I absolutely love this site! I found out about it after listening to your interview on the Mainstreet Vegan podcast. Would you happen to know if roasted cashews would work ok? I live in a small town and the only cashews I can find around here are roasted. Thanks!

Hi Jeff — welcome to VegKitchen! This is a really good question. With roasted cashews, you’ll get more of a nut butter flavor. It won’t be bad, but not the same as the neutral creaminess of raw cashews. You can try it if you’d like to take a chance; otherwise there are likely lots of places from which to order raw cashews online.